We share God’s vision of our neighbors and our world in this community and are strengthened for our work as Christ by each other.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, Lect. 6 C
Texts: Luke 6:17-26

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

I speak in defense of bubbles.

The conventional view of our polarized country is that people live in their own bubbles. They hear one point of view, gather with people sharing that view, and treat anyone who sees differently with disdain and often hatred. Left or right, people name and decry this reality of our modern world.

For good reason. If you put on blinders and ignore or hate anyone who differs from you, you’ll have a warped world view. Everyone needs to understand other points of view, find common ground, test their news sources and influences for bias and for factual truth, or we’re in trouble.

And yet it is a tremendous blessing to be in this community of faith, who hears Jesus’ words every week, and so sees the world and people as God does. Clearly some people, even some bearing Christ’s name, are willing to crush and destroy vulnerable people, whether LGBTQ or immigrant or poor or different in any way, for their own power and their own gain. So to be with a community who instead sees the face of God in every child, every person, who sees even strangers as neighbors worthy of love, is a huge relief when trying to navigate this frightening and broken and hateful world.

Clearly God’s Son today says the Triune God’s way of seeing is radically different from the common way of the world.

To God, those who are poor are blessed, because they’re in the heart of God’s reign, where we try to share all we have so none go without. Those who are rich are warned that wealth is not a sign of God’s approval and separates them from God’s family, leaving them without consolation. The world says that’s nonsense. Jesus says, well, that’s how God sees things.

To God, those who are hungry are blessed because in God’s reign food is shared and all are filled. And those who fill themselves up and trample others to get more are warned this is the path to a hunger no wealth or power can ever fill. The world says that’s nonsense. Jesus says, well, that’s how God sees things.

To God, those who weep are blessed because in God’s reign they find people who hold them, love them, share their tears. They find hope and home. And those who won’t feel the pain of another person, who laugh while people are caged or marginalized, are warned they’re isolating themselves into a life that leads only to grief. The world says that’s nonsense. Jesus says, well, that’s how God sees things.

The Triune God sees dramatically opposite to the way the world does. God values weakness, not strength, love, not power, and dies to create life. But we live in the world, so it’s sometimes hard to remember this. We’re tempted to side with those in power, or to secure our wealth, and ignore the pain of others as we scrabble for our own security.

And that’s where our community is a blessing.

Here we see God’s way together, and help each other live and act in it. Here, where love of God and love of neighbor are our highest ethical values, we can’t separate our trust in God’s love from our care for all people. So if I struggle to see as God sees, you all model and witness to me that way of seeing. And I remember. When you struggle to live as Christ, with the sacrifices that path asks, people here model and witness to you a life-giving way of being for all God’s children. And you’re encouraged.

We’re not in a bubble here to ignore other points of view and claim we’re right and others are wrong. We’re in this together to remember God’s way together. To remember and share God’s point of view.

And when we despair to see people treating others as garbage, risking others for their own needs, threatening vulnerable people and seeing them as nothing, we come together as a community and rejoice that we’re with people who do see the face of God in every person. Who trust that caring for the hungry, thirsty, and naked ones, the strangers, the sick, the imprisoned ones, is caring for Christ. When we think that the world’s gone mad, here we’re reassured there are still many who seek love and justice for all.

And this isn’t a question of picking political sides.

Christians of both parties and no parties have often found ways to agree on what’s important, if sometimes not on the policies to fix it. For example, we’ve agreed God cares for those who are hungry, therefore we must. Different political parties had different ways of addressing that, but sometimes even found compromise and common ground for the good of all.

But our current leaders, elected by a majority of those who chose to vote, are in it only for themselves, and disregard not only common decency but the very rule of law that holds our nation together. They argue for keeping politics out of church, and out of sermons in the National Cathedral, while putting their view of church into politics, reshaping the government. We can’t pretend this is business as usual.

But maybe this is a time that finally shows us the importance of living as a Christian.

Maybe now we find out what Jesus means. Many of us have lived privileged lives without facing adversity for practicing our faith. Choosing to act as Christ or not without many real consequences. Jesus’ warnings of rejection and being hated for following used to feel as if they didn’t apply to us. Not anymore.

Bishop Budde’s sermon was something you’d hear at Mount Olive and any number of our sibling congregations any time. She took Jesus’ call to love others seriously, as we do. She spoke of the joy of God’s diversity and finding unity in welcoming all. And the really offensive part apparently was simply asking the president to show mercy, to listen to all who were afraid and vulnerable. All values we share in this community.

Now, maybe, these values put us up against the wall. We have a chance to stand up for those being hurt, we’re called to risk so that the vulnerable are protected, and we might actually face adversity for being a Christian for the first time in our lives. That’s good. It feels good to face a Christian life Jesus actually envisioned, where we’re not in power and not controlling but a minority caring for those God sees as important and most in need. Those this community sees as important and most in need.

You are God’s beloved community.

And I thank God for you. For sharing God’s vision of the world together. For the witness you make in your daily lives to God’s love for all, the risks you’re taking to be Christ’s love. For the urgency so many here have to find the Christly path for Mount Olive in all this.

You are not alone because you have this community. We are not alone because there are thousands of communities of all faiths who share God’s love for all and want to risk being that love for all. And if someone hates us for this, reviles us, well, now we’re really having a good time. Because finally we’re acting enough like Christ to rile up the world.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

God’s freedom and redemption are meant for all people, and we’re called to be a part of it.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Presentation of Our Lord
Texts: Psalm 84; Luke 2:22-40

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

We once had a bat in church in a former parish.

Bats are wonderful, but swooping down over worshippers’ heads, veering around the altar, these behaviors raise anxiety. So Psalm 84, which began our liturgy, is confusing. It delights in finding refuge, healing, and hope in God’s house, like finding an oasis in the desert. But then the psalmist gushes: “even the sparrow has found a home [here], and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young, by the side of your altars, O God.”

I’ve never met an altar guild who’d be thrilled at a bird’s nest adorning the side of the altar. Having birds take shelter in here isn’t an obvious sign to us of God’s love and care.

Maybe it should be. Here we find refuge and healing, sanctuary from a world of fear and danger. Here we find community and welcome, a place to rest, to pray, to be with God in God’s house.

But this psalm says our refuge in God is refuge when everyone has it. Even birds find safe harbor in the Temple, that’s how you know it’s God’s house. No one’s safe until everyone is safe.

Today we celebrate Jesus’ presentation in that Temple.

This coming to the temple wasn’t about refuge. It was a normal thing for Jewish families then, honoring tradition and God’s law. But two servants of God meet this new family and everything changes. One, Simeon, declares this baby to be God’s Christ, God’s Messiah, a light to non-Jews, and the glory of Israel. Simeon says that in Jesus all peoples are in God’s care. No one is left behind. And Simeon rightly says this means Jesus will cause problems, will be opposed, will expose people’s inner thoughts about God and the world.

Then Anna speaks about this child to “all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem,” Luke says. Naturally. She’s spent decades living in the Temple, centering her life on the God of Israel. But she seems to affirm only half of Simeon’s promise: this child will be the one to free Jerusalem. The glory of God’s people Israel, as Simeon said.

But Anna’s saying something very different, that, once we see all Jesus did and taught, will challenge us to re-think the whole idea of redemption and freedom. What it looks like, how God will accomplish it.

Throughout Jesus’ ministry, and if we’re honest, throughout Christian history, there’s been tragic confusion about God’s intentions and plan.

Anna’s people, “those looking for the redemption of Jerusalem,” could’ve hoped for to overthrow Roman occupation and politically free God’s people. This hope dogged Jesus even after the resurrection. When the Emmaus couple talk with the risen Jesus unawares, they sadly say, “we’d hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” To free us. In Acts 1, the disciples still asked if now he was going to restore the nation.

Christians have followed this path far too often. Whenever we get political power, Christians and Christian leaders try to cement control over it, assuming if we’re running things in Christ’s name it’s all good. But it’s usually led to destruction, oppression, slaughter, discrimination, inquisition, war, violence. Inevitably in world history if Christians make Jesus a political Messiah, trying to rule in his name, we’ll be doing some kind of evil.

Including today. Right wing Christianity in this country barely acknowledges the teachings of Jesus, the center of his mission and call, favoring making him a god-mascot whose image gives them permission to be in charge. To control others in his name, to do whatever benefits them with impunity and with the passion of believing God on their side. What they’re doing is an old, old game, using Christ as permission to act as power-hungry people, to cover up well-known human desires and need for control.

But at Emmaus Jesus doesn’t answer the couple, “Now I’m alive, I’ll take over.”

He opens their hearts to the Scriptures instead, to show what God’s plan actually is. And when the disciples want him to restore Israel he says to wait in the city for the Spirit to come upon them. Not so they can control others. So they can witness to God’s mission and love for the world.

The mission and love that is evident every time you open God’s Word. God’s care for those who are poor and oppressed fills the words of the whole Bible. God’s welcome to all who are outsiders, aliens, strangers, outcast, is everywhere. God’s healing grace for all who are broken, sad, grieving, sick, in pain, is central to God’s will throughout the whole of Scripture.

That’s what redemption means for God. The redemption of Jerusalem, Anna’s proclamation, is always only part of God’s promise. In the Torah, in the prophets, in the psalm today, in Simeon’s words and Jesus’ ministry, Israel is the start and all God’s people are the final goal.

And it’s not political freedom or power God promises. It’s freedom, redemption, to be the loving people God made in the first place. People who embody God’s care, God’s welcome, God’s healing grace. Who have the same no boundaries approach to any who are in need. Who are shaped by the Spirit to the same self-giving, vulnerable love the Triune God has repeatedly shown to the world.

Until everyone is safe, no one is safe. Until everyone knows God’s love, no one knows love.

And you know that, even when you come here to God’s house for refuge and healing. Even though you wish some days you could just make sure you were OK and didn’t have to think about all who are hurting and being hurt. Because as a pastor once said to me, “Once you know the grace of God is yours, how can you live knowing there are others who don’t know this for themselves?”

Even birds are welcome to nest in God’s house. All God’s creatures need to know God’s love. Only then can God’s dream of justice, love, and peace for all come to be.

What this will look like for our ministry here together, or for your own walk in Christ we need to talk about and listen and discern in these hard days. The answers will not always be obvious, but they will come. They won’t always be easy, but we are assured God’s Spirit will guide us and hold us in all things.

And little step by little step we’ll see with wonder how God’s home is broadening and embracing more and more into life and hope and justice and healing. Until our eyes, like Simeon’s, are able to see God’s salvation come into being.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen